China has sent one of its largest recorded fishing fleets to disputed islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), state-run media said on Tuesday, amid tensions over Beijing’s assertion of its claims in the region.
Taiwan’s coastguards said Monday that Taipei had staged a live-fire drill within a hotly-contested island chain in the South China Sea, in a move that risks stoking regional tensions.
The government is skirting the Sabah conflict – a pestering issue between the Philippines and Malaysia – in next week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ summit in Brunei, officials said on Wednesday.
The Philippines reiterated, on Thursday, its commitment to the peaceful settlement of its claims in the West Philippine Sea or the South China Sea area through arbitration proceedings under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS.
China is to open disputed South China Sea islands up to tourism this month, state media reported Sunday, a move likely to inflame a long-running territorial row with its neighbors.
China’s increasingly powerful navy has denied firing on a Vietnamese boat in disputed waters in the South China Sea, state media said Wednesday, as its craft made wide-ranging patrols of the region.
China said its navy fired flares at Vietnamese fishing boats but denied Hanoi’s claim that a vessel was damaged in an incident that is highlighting tensions over disputed South China Sea Islands and surrounding waters believed to hold a wealth of oil and natural gas deposits.
Customs authorities, led by Deputy Commissioner Danilo Lim, on Monday seized 5,000 bags of rice worth P9 million at the Mindanao Container Terminal in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental, that Lim said were smuggled in from Vietnam.
Officials from the Philippines and Vietnam met on Friday and talked about preparations for the 7th Joint Commission Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) to be held next year, which would involve discussions on defense cooperation and maritime issues, among others.
China’s air force has staged one of its largest-ever drills amid heightened tensions with Japan and Beijing’s southern neighbors over territorial claims, state media reported Friday.
Vietnam has warned China to respect its sovereignty after accusing Chinese ships of sabotaging a Vietnamese survey vessel in the disputed West Philippine Sea.
Vietnam’s state-owned oil and gas company accused Chinese fishing boats on Monday of sabotaging one of its seismic survey ships in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), adding to already high tensions over Beijing’s disputed territorial claims in the waters.
